Geodephagous Coleoptera of Japan. 27l 
I do uot know, and which has been variously recorded as 
from India and the Cape of Good Hope. The general 
colour is a dull cop]:)ery, and the whole upper surface very 
densely clothed Avith short tawny hairs. The palpi are 
brassy-black, except the extreme points, which are pallid. 
The antenna) are black or dark brown, Avith the 1st or the 
1st and 2nd joints reddish. The thorax is transverse- 
quadrate, moderately widened to one-third the length, 
then slightly narrowed posteriorly, forming obtuse hind 
angles, the apices of which project a little ; the surface is 
as if corroded, impressed with large irregularly confluent 
punctures, forming here and there coarse ruga3, and all 
the interstices covered with a fine punctuation. The elytra 
are deeply sinuate at the tip ; the striae are distinctly punc- 
tured, and the 3rd, 5th and 7th interstices raised. 
• The paraglossffi are large and connate with the ligula, 
surrounding the apex and meeting above, as in the Le~ 
biadcB. The anterior and middle tarsi of the $ have four 
joints moderately dilated, the soles clothed with small 
scales aiTanged in two rows. 
It is not stated in Gemminger and Harold's Catalogue 
on Avhat authority Platj/metopus Thunbergi of Dejean 
is placed as a synonym of Dioryche torta of Macleay's 
Annulosa Javanica and the universally-used generic name 
of Dejean's changed, in consequence, for the prior name of 
Macleay. This very unwise change and confusion of 
nomenclature are founded on a complication of mistakes 
which could not possibly have been committed if the 
original descriptions had been consulted. There is not 
one point of agreement between the descriptions of Dio- 
ryche torta and Platymetopus Thunbergi. The generic 
characters given with Dioryche are vague in the extreme 
and teach nothing, so that the name would have no right 
to supplant another Avell-defined one in general use, even 
if it were synonymous, which is not clear in the present 
case, as D. torta probably does not belong to Dejean's 
genus. Dr. Gemminger (to whose superior eagerness to 
change established names on any sort of excuse we owe the 
" Catalogue" of Carahidat) also separates the P. Thun- 
bergi of Dejean from that of Quensel (in Schonh. Syn.). 
This appears another unwarrantable change. Dejean 
received his specimen from Schonherr himself, and his 
description agrees exceedingly well with that of Quensel. 
There appears simply to have been some error as to 
